CRINMAIL 64:

HARMFUL TRADITIONAL PRACTICES

In this issue:

Problems viewing this CRINMAIL? Click here. 

Renewed call for submissions on Harmful Traditional Practices

The International NGO Council on Violence against Children has extended the submission deadline for its call for information on harmful traditional practices (HTPs) affecting children until April 30^th, 2012.

Submissions welcomed include:

• papers, reports and discussions on HTPs;

• as full a list as possible of what you consider to be HPTs in your country/region and any comments on the definition of “harmful traditional practices”;

• positive legal frameworks and other measures adopted to challenge and work towards the elimination of HTPs, together with any assessment of their effectiveness.

The purpose of this project is to identify and define HTPs, as well as legal frameworks and other measures to challenge and eliminate them. The findings will be included in a major report on the prohibition of HTPs to be presented during the UN General Assembly's October debate on children's rights and violence against children.

What is meant by harmful traditional practices?

Although there is sometimes disagreement as to what the term “harmful traditional practices” covers, the following is a non-exhaustive, illustrative list of practices which have been identified as such in various reports and debates:

• Female genital mutilation/cutting;

• Virginity-testing;

• Male circumcision (some commentators have challenged the practice only when carried out by non-medical personnel and without appropriate hygiene and pain relief; others challenge it, when carried out on young children, as a gross invasion of physical integrity without consent); 

• Binding, breast ironing, scarring, burning, branding, coin-rubbing, tattooing, piercing;

• A wide range of initiation ceremonies, some community/religion-based, some linked to schools or other institutions, the priesthood, monasteries, etc. These generally involve some forms of physical assault, direct or indirect, as well as degradation. Some involve sexual assault/exploitation;

• Violent and/or humiliating forms of punishment/treatment: corporal punishment, isolation, etc.;

• Early and forced marriage;

• HIV/AIDS “cleansing”;

• So-called “honour” crimes, acid attacks, crimes committed in relation to bride-price and dowry;

• Denouncing of children as witches or possessed by evil spirits;

• Deliberate discriminatory treatment of children, often but not always involving various degrees of violence including extreme; and/or treatment or neglect prejudicial to health – including for example preferential feeding and/or care of male children; lack of care for children with disabilities;

• Forms of treatment including extreme restriction of liberty for certain groups of disabled children – autism, children with albinism;

• “Bogus" forms of treatment/medication/diets not based on medical evidence; discrimination against children born on certain days; and food taboos. 

Please sent submissions – whenever possible in English – to [email protected] by April 30, 2012. Please inform us clearly if any of the materials you send, or their source, are confidential.

Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=27935

Back to top

HARMFUL TRADITIONAL PRACTICES: A global issue 

Defying popular belief 

Children in Uganda are routinely trafficked and kidnapped for ritual sacrifice, as the practice is believed to bring wealth and prosperity. According to a 2008 police report, ritual murder increased by more than 800 per cent from 2007, with children as the main victims. Full story.

In northern parts of Ghana, popular belief holds that children born with “deformities” must either be killed or abandoned and left to die, as they are believed to be “spirit children” capable of bringing a curse onto a whole village. Such “deformities” include medically justifiable features such as a large head or the inability to talk or walk at a certain age. Full story. 

And in some parts of Madagascar, newborn twins are believed to bring bad luck and violence to parents and their community, and should therefore not remain with their birth parents. This has pushed families to put their children up for adoption. But parents are starting to defy this tradition and it is increasingly common to see “mothers...walking proudly through the village, one child in each arm.” Full story. 

Breaking cultural assumptions

In the United States, so-called “honour killings” are under growing scrutiny as an increasing number of cases are making headlines. Activists say that greater news coverage of the issue breaks the cultural assumption that such violence only occurs overseas. But a lack of effective protection mechanisms for these girls is also of concern. Shockingly in one case, child protection services refused to intervene because they did not want to get involved in a “cultural issue”. Full story. 

Meanwhile in Germany, counselling centres registered over 3,440 forced marriages in 2008, a third of which involved girls aged 17 or younger. But the Family Minister Kristiana Schröder emphasised that the real number of people who are intimidated into marriage is much higher, and that only a small proportion actually seek help, as those who try to resist are often threatened by, and risk being isolated from, their own family. Full story. 

In the United Kingdom, some medics are allegedly offering to perform or arrange female genital mutilation to be carried out on girls as young as 10, investigators of the Sunday Times have reported. Full story.

The views of young people are requested for a national survey on female genital mutilation co-organised by the Foundation for Women's Health Research and Development to improve young people's understanding of the nature and experiences of, and attitudes towards, this harmful traditional practice. It is an online survey that only takes 15 minutes to complete! To take part, click here.

Two cases in point

Back in November, doctors in Indonesia surgically removed more than two-dozen 10cm nails and two syringe needles from the body of a three-year-old girl, sparking allegations of black magic. The victim said that her grandfather had warned her to keep quiet to avoid media attention. Full story.  

In the United Kingdom, a British Congolese couple have been charged with killing a 15-year-old relative, who they accused of practising witchcraft, after they inflicted four days of what prosecutors described as “unimaginable physical torture”. Full story. 

Emerging issues 

Forced male circumcision has sparked debate in Norway and the Netherlands, and previously also in Denmark, where child rights advocates aim to set a minimum age under which the practice should be banned. Jewish and Muslim groups defend male circumcision as a religious right – of the parents – but critics say it is an abuse of children's rights as it is forcibly conducted at an age at which the child cannot give his consent. Advocates say it is important to balance and prioritise the rights of children over the religious freedom allegations of adults. 

Activists have also called attention to how “faith healing” - whereby parents refuse often life-saving treatments on religious grounds - affects children, sometimes fatally. In one shocking case, a child in the United States died from chocking on food after her parents, rather than seeking emergency medical assistance, prayed during the 40 minutes that she remained unconscious before dying. Nineteen US states currently have “faith healing” exemptions in their child abuse and neglect laws, which allowing for religious defences for felony crimes. Full story. 

The case of corporal punishment

The use of corporal punishment against children is also often rooted in religious, cultural and traditional beliefs and practices. Some employ the Christian Bible's use of the term “chastisement”, for example, as a justification to physically assault a child, often in the name of “discipline”.

Upon revision of the term in Norway back in 2008, Church leaders accepted the proposal put forward by the country's Ombudsman for Children to replace the word “chastisement” in new translations of the Bible into Norwegian for more appropriate language reflecting its intended meaning. It was agreeed that today the word is “virtually synonymous with corporal punishment”, and as the Bishops' Conference of Norway concluded, it is “unsuitable for reflecting what is involved when the Bible speaks of parents' responsibility to raise and guide their children”. 

Similarly in August 2007, the South African Council of Churches also insisted there can be no biblical justification for corporal punishment of children in the 21^st century. 

Back to top

UPCOMING EVENTS 

One-day workshop on 'How to Prevent Unnecessary Male Circumcision'
Organisation: Genital Autonomy
Event date: 26 July 2012
Location: Keele University, Staffordshire, UK
More details here.  

'Law, Genital Autonomy and Children's Rights'
Organisation: Genital Autonomy
Event date: 30 September – 2 October 2012
Location: Helsinki, Finland
More details here. 

The Last Word

Back to top